Leaving Home
by Eleneri
Summary: Prequel to "Humble Beginnings"; Corso Riggs left Ord Mantell to join the Peace Brigade at the tender age of fourteen. This is my own interpretation of how that might have happened.


_Author's note__:_

_This drabble was inspired by rewatching the Youtube videos about Corso's romance arc. The second time around, I suddenly realized he'd joined the Peace Brigade at __**fourteen**__. So, naturally, I started wondering how that had happened. I mean, no fourteen year old can just run off and go offplanet without their parents noticing, and few relief agencies would take someone so young. He must have looked older than his actual age, or it never would have worked. So that got me thinking about how Corso might have left the ranch. _

_However, when I started researching, I found there seems to be some variance in the information Corso gives and the information on the SWTOR site. In-game, he talks about joining the Peace Brigade at fourteen and being in warzones, then talks about being fresh off the ship when he was sixteen and being given a blaster by a mercenary who's joined the Brigade. He mentions his parents locking Torchy up when he got home and that he didn't have her when the Separatists came for his family. However, on the SWTOR Holonet site, it states that Corso returned to Ord Mantell when word reached him that his remote community had been attacked and his family killed while fighting off a Separatist raiding party. Then you have to factor in the whole fiancee thing, and wonder when that got shoehorned in. Do they really marry THAT young out in the boonies?_

_Somehow, I don't think this drabble is going to stay short - or possibly even stay classifiable as a drabble - if I want to try and cobble some storysense out of this conflicting information..._

_I also threw some names at his parents, since I couldn't find any hard information on them other than their deaths. If anyone knows their real names, please feel free to let me know and I'll make corrections._

* * *

**Leaving Home**

"He's only a boy!"

The anguished sound of his mother's voice cut into the familiar darkness of his childhood bedroom like a glass spear. Corso Riggs huddled into his blankets. Lying in bed, waiting for his parents to decide, was killing him. He focused on the patch of nighttime sky he could see through the curtains his mother had made him last year. There were so many stars... Their sprawling ranch might be isolated, but that just meant it was the best place to watch those beautiful bits of nighttime fancy.

"He may be a boy, Lil, but he's growin' up." Parker Riggs' deep voice rumbled down the hall, muffled by the several meters from the family room to the bedrooms, but still audiable enough. "He looks like a man grown already, even if he ain't finished filling out all those inches with muscle, and he's just fourteen."

"_Fourteen_, Parker! And he wants to go off to some warzone! I don't care how well-intentioned he is! He's not a man yet, for all he's taller than you are."

"You grow 'em well, Lil." His father's voice lowered a bit more, and a silence rolled down the hall.

Despite his tension, Corso grinned. He knew what that silence meant. Kissing was a common enough occurance in the Riggs household that he didn't take notice anymore, even at the age where most kids were violently repelled by so much as the_ thought _of their parents kissing. Ord Mantellian ranchers might be old-fashioned when it came to the whole courtship thing, but once the wedding rings were on... well, they tended to make up for lost time.

"Oh, stop that!" His mother sounded breathless. "You're not getting around this by distracting me, Parker. Corso's too young to go off with this Peace Brigade, and that's final."

Corso realized that his hands were aching, and looked down to see that he was clenching fistfuls of his quilt hard enough that his knuckles were white. She didn't understand. How could she? Despair swamped him, almost as much as it flooded through him whenever he saw reports of planetwide Imperial atrocities over the holo. He wanted - no, he _needed_ - to help. If he could make a difference for even one person, wouldn't that be worth it?

"Lilinara."

Just that one word, and there was another kind of silence, the kind that hummed through the whole house in expanding rings. Corso held his breath, realized his mother was likely doing the same.

"We have to let him go."

"No!" There it was, his mother's fire, flaring up against his pa's calm. Just like always.

"It's in him, Lil. He's determined, and it ain't some passin' fancy. He's been makin' noises about it for a year now. If we keep him here, we're betrayin' everything we've taught him all these fourteen years."

_Be true to your heart_. Lying there in the dark, Corso suddenly remembered his father saying that hundreds of times. _Be true to your heart, and it'll never fail you. It may take you where you never thought you'd be, but it'll never leave you wanting._

The distant sound of his mother's weeping drifted down the hall, mingling with the occasional creak of the house as it settled for the night. Corso closed his eyes, fighting tears of his own. He hated doing this to her, to his pa. Didn't even really want to leave the ranch. It was just that he _had_ to. He wasn't running away _from_ something, like his cousin Rona did when she got up to her mischief in town or at the spaceport, he was running_ to _something. Something important. He didn't quite know what it was, but somewhere, _somewhen,_ he was needed.

His pa had always said that Corso was a born protector, always sticking up for whoever or whatever couldn't stand on their own. Well, Pa'd been right. And it was time he got on with his job.

* * *

The next morning, sunup seemed to come extra early. It might have been the nearly sleepless night Corso'd spent worrying about his parents' decision, but he was dragging badly that morning, and he knew it. He was also acutely aware of the humming silence around the kitchen table as his mother piled breakfast on his plate. "Better eat up, sweetheart. The chores won't wait much longer."

"This is great! Thanks, ma." Being fourteen meant having the appetite of two starving rontos, and Corso applied it to his flatcakes, dumping quantities of syrup on his plate and shovelling food into his mouth in a manner that wasn't quite rude enough to earn him a reprimand. "Nobody makes these like you."

"True, true. I suspect you'll miss 'em while you're away."

Corso froze, fork halfway to his mouth, syrup dripping in a slow, sticky trail to the checkered tablecloth. He just looked at her.

His mother was smiling. It was a soft, pained smile, the one she'd worn throughout his life whenever he did something that made her remember the boy he'd been and realize the man he was becoming. "Ma?" he croaked, voice cracking like it hadn't in a year.

"You're going." Her dark eyes, so like his, were solemn, and full of a mother's painful pride. "Your father and I agree. You need to do this. I may not like it, but I know you, son." Her hand - when had her hand gotten so small? - touched his shoulder, squeezed. "This is your time."

Corso was out of the chair, flatcakes forgotten, and had his arms wrapped around his ma before he could even really think about it. "Ma." His voice broke again, and he buried his face in her soft blond hair. "Ma, I - "

Another hand touched his shoulder, strong and broad, and even through his shirt, Corso could feel the hard-earned calluses on the palm. "Pa."

Parker Riggs, tall and broad-shouldered and dark-haired like his son, stood there for a second before engulfing his wife and child in a massive hug. "Got you tickets on the shuttle for tomorrow, Corso. You just make sure you're doing this for the right reasons. You promise you'll keep to what we taught ya."

"I promise, Pa." Corso swallowed past the lump in his throat, abandoned dignity and hugged his pa for all he was worth. Parker Riggs was a big man, but Corso had an inch on him. "I promise."

His father pulled back for a moment, gray eyes solemn and clear and so suddenly all-seeing that it made Corso want to squirm uncomfortably. "You're growin' into a man I can be proud of, Corso Riggs," he rumbled quietly. Intensely. "See that you stay that way."

"Yessir." Corso swallowed past the lump in his throat, but it was a near thing.

"Good." His pa gave a decisive nod. "Now, your ma worked hard on that stack of flatcakes on your plate. Best you eat 'em and get out to do your chores. Just 'cause you're goin' off to learn to save planets tomorrow don't mean you can skate work today."

Dutifully, Corso sat and applied himself to his food. The flatcakes were cold now, but he ate them anyway, mindful of his parents' dictum to not waste what he was blessed with. _Don't imagine I'll be getting Ma's flatcakes again for a while, at least. Leastways not until I get back_.

"Corso?"

He blinked, looked up to meet his father's eyes. "Yes, Pa?"

"You think you can manage to stay gone long enough for me to try and give your ma some more little Riggs rontoherders to fill those empty bedrooms we're gonna have?"

There was a clatter at the stove as his ma dropped the pan. "_Parker_!"

"What?" His father kept a suspiciously straight face, but Corso saw his lips twitch. "Think of all that wasted space. All those rooms, just all lonely like that. And it's not like either of us is beyond havin' more little'uns."

Mouth hanging open, Corso watched his father casually duck the swipe his ma took at his head, grab her wrist, and tug her into his lap. "I'll, um... gonna go check the fenceline. Yeah. And then muck the stalls. Maybe check the herd in the far pasture." He stood as quickly as he could without knocking over his chair. "Leavin' now. Bye."

"Bye, son. Don't hurry back."

_Seein's how they're kissing - again - I don't see how they're gonna notice even when I do come back._ Corso scrambled to the door, banging through it with an excess of energy that came less from being a teenager and more from fleeing what was happening in the kitchen. _On account of there was kissing, and there was... other stuff_. And just 'cause he was OK with the one didn't mean he wasn't going to run like a rabbit when the other might be in the forseeable future. _Although..._

He glanced back over his shoulder toward the kitchen, warm light and the scent of flatcakes spilling out of the slowly-closing door into the chilly Mantellian dawn like a benediction. _Someday, that's what I want. Someday. Maybe when the Peace Brigade ain't needed anymore, and when I meet the right girl. I want what they have. For now, though, guess I'll settle for a sky full of stars._


End file.
